Games

A Collection of Games that I Write Posts About

Excellent Warcraft Lore Primer

by

I realized I tweeted this out yesterday, but it is Friday and I am not sure what else I was going to write about. Yesterday I was thinking about the Warcraft movie and the Tweet by Metzen that folks are taking as acknowledgement that there is a second movie in the works. The truth is I remember very little about the early lore of the Warcraft universe apart from a vague sketch of the flow of the timeline. I played the hell out of Warcraft II, but mostly in multi-player and while I am certain that I played through the campaign I remember very little of it. When Warcraft 3 came out I was already deeply engaged in MMORPGs and either playing Everquest or Dark Age of Camelot and never quite got around to playing it other than in office LAN parties.

That means there are large chunks of the story that I only know from the perspective of how World of Warcraft presents that information. Doing some googling I stumbled onto this recap video by Drew Peezick aka @dpeezick / lawllypop. What I particularly like about the video is that it takes either real or created Hearthstone cards to represent the major players and presents the story in fairly simple terms. Warcraft as a universe is this sort of self contradictory mess that has evolved over time and rewritten bits as needed to support whatever the new story initiative happens to be. We are in truth heading into this territory as we approach the Shadowlands expansion and the lore that is being spun up about the pantheon of death.

I had originally arrived looking for the lore of the first two games but found that this is apparently a sequence of videos that carries forward with the first chapter being “before warcraft 3” the second chapter being “Warcraft 3” and then moving forward into classic World of Warcraft and through each off the expansions. It is funny that for even not playing the game Warcraft 3 I found myself familiar with a lot of the lore that was presented. I guess this comes as a result of playing the game for some sixteen years and having bits and pieces of it fed to me in a very slow drip through quest lines. World of Warcraft is a game that has regularly strip mined its past in order to present a path forward.

I think the thing that I really enjoyed the most while watching these videos is the way that they attempt to weave modern and past lore together into something that makes a reasonable amount of sense. Things get messy at times when you try and figure out the actual canon story of the dungeons and raids since these are ultimately multi-player experiences. The videos however do a really good job of shifting back and forth between the perspective of the Horde and Alliance and weaving our way around some of the key plot points that ultimately lead to the phases of the Classic wow release schedule and the key conflicts that were involved in each. For now a large amount of the Troll lore has been pushed off to its own video in the future.

I really enjoyed the Burning Crusade video because having not played horde during this era, I found some of the motivations of the Blood Elves to be a little obtuse and how exactly Kael’thas, Lady Vashj, Akama and Illidan fit together other than just being large set piece battles for us in the raids. I’ve never been a fan of Night Elves so I was turned off pretty early when I attempted to read War of the Ancients, so I greatly appreciate all of the lore bits from the novels, game and other canon sources woven back together into something that makes sense. Nobbel does an excellent job of deep diving into specific segments of lore, but what I was craving was an overview to understand how all of these disparate pieces are supposed to fit together… or at least a narrative that weaves them into something that makes sense. I think there exists a need for both types of content and I am happy to see that this channel is approaching it from a primer standpoint.

When we get to the Wrath of the Lich King, I think is where lore starts to become extremely cogent given that Shadowlands in essence feels a bit like a return to the themes of this expansion. Legion felt in many ways to be a return to the themes of Burning Crusade, so it makes sense hat we would have an expansion that attempts to continue the story forward from Wrath as well. Most of this lore I was already familiar with because I was actively raiding during this time and also I think in Wrath the way the stories were presented did a significant better job of pieces together the bits into a cohesive narrative. That said there were still a good number of things that I learned along the way and the video was well worth a watch.

With Cataclysm we reach the end of this journey so far. This video came out on September 19th, and I am certain that the creation of these requires a significant amount of time. The Pre-WC3 Lore video came out a year ago, Warcraft 3 9 months ago, Classic WoW 4 months ago, and then it seems like things have accelerated considerably with BC, Wrath and Cata coming out roughly a month apart. I would love to see a new video each month, but that still seems like an awful lot of work considering how much sifting through storyline it has to take and then the creation of the really cool Hearthstone style assets. It did remind me however that there were absolutely bits of story that I used to love about this game, and that while time and layers of story on top of it have muddied the water, the core is still enjoyable.

Even though the cosmology of this World of Warcraft has shifted and changed over time, I find it terribly interesting to at least mentally revisit the stories from its past. I think this video series does an amazing job of simplifying things enough to make it all work together. I think this is in essence what Blizzard has been trying to do over the last few expansions, is meld everything that came before with everything that is happening currently and attempt to lay out the cards in a manner that makes sense. All of that said I think these videos do a better job of presenting the core thrust of these expansions, and while there are hundreds of important side bits that blur our perspectives I greatly appreciate the way these present backstory at the moment it is important rather than trying to lay everything out in a strict chronology. I highly suggest you check it out and I greatly applaud someone who can make the nonsense that was the comic book series blend cleanly into the timeline. The entire playlist of six videos is just shy of two hours, and I personally consider that to be time well spent.

Leveling is Relaxing

by

One of my many secrets to surviving the time of pandemic has been spending time in World of Warcraft. No matter how long I am away from the game, coming back to it always feels like coming home. We shall not look at the /played time for all of my characters because it would probably frighten me, but needless to say I have spent many an hour poking around in this game since it launched in November of 2004. I go through these periods where I attempt to be super serious about content, but my happiest times are always when I am just poking around and doing casual stuff on my army of characters. I find leveling to be exceptionally calming and before the pandemic I had two characters at 120, and now I have 1 Alliance side and 10 Horde side. Leveling is just something that gives me an opportunity to turn my brain off and relax, and stop worrying about everything that is going on and every possible interaction that I might encounter.

Most recently I had been working on my Mag’har Orc Shaman and I had a really fun time leveling it. Always in the past I have focused entirely on melee characters and as a result I have always leveled Shaman as Enhancement. This time around I decided to mix things up and leveled from the very beginning all the way to 120 as Elemental. I have to say Elemental is exceptionally fun with the way the play style factors around various procs. I think what I enjoyed the most is the fact that I didn’t feel squishy in the same way that I attribute to casters in general. I usually had time to heal myself back up when I was taking damage, or hit one of my “oh shit” buttons like Earth Elemental to take the heat off of me for awhile. The only negative is it felt a little weak in the AOE department, and shocks were really the only viable means of tagging mobs especially when it came to world quests. I finished the Shaman on Friday and then turned around and immediately started working on the next character in sequence.

That would be my Vulpera Rogue, because it just seemed to fit given they are a small and tricksy race to start with. I am leveling Outlaw because I still don’t like daggers at all, and am having a great time of it. Tam would be proud as I use the various rogue tricks to whittle my way through camps of mobs. I’ve also learned the joys of Sap and Pick Pocket used in sequence. I am not sure if I have ever leveled all the way through Stranglethorn Vale since it was changed drastically in cataclysm, so I am absolutely enjoying that as well. I should ding 60 before I finish the area and at that point I will likely jump over to Outlands. I’ve recently developed a taste for the Burning Crusade content and it seems more efficient than running through Wrath of the Lich King for that level block.

Now I realize that all of this is going to be meaningless shortly when the pre-patch lands. I don’t expect to make it all of the way to 120 on the Rogue before that happens, which means I will likely be leveling my last character under the level squish. The only remaining character I have horde side is my Nightborne Shadow Priest, and it is currently wearing heirlooms in Ashenvale. I was not entirely certain how well I would do at leveling a pure caster, but at this point I have leveled the Elemental Shaman and the Warlock, so maybe just maybe shadow will feel natural after those. At least in the case of Shadow Priest I still have a bunch of ways to bring my health back up… which is not a thing you have on a Mage which is why I ultimately used my boost on that character.

Other than that I have been running Coren Direbrew each day on my army of alts, mostly just to farm a few trinkets and that I guess it feels like the thing to be doing. I really enjoy World of Warcraft when we are in these in between times and there is zero pressure to be leveling or gearing. My hope as is always the case is to go into this expansion without feeling the need to chase other players in level or in gearing. However I also know that once I get in the thick of things that the old instincts will kick in and I will apply pressure to myself to rapidly move through the levels and be “ready” for things I am not likely going to do. Right now my plans are to do some Mythic+ key pushing, but for that I need to figure out a viable group. Right now we have my Paladin and Grace’s Monk, so I need to sort out who else we might have access to. I am targeting a EST/CST friendly time frame so apologies to my West Coast friends, but yall need to operate way the fuck too late for my old ass. Hopefully I can make something happen, but for now I am happy leveling my alts.

Swords ‘n Magic and Stuff

by

Sometimes on AggroChat we inadvertently sell each other on the games we are playing. On this weekend’s show Tam threw a topic on the trello that I couldn’t pass up, because initially I thought he just wanted to talk about generic fantasy tropes. However apparently it was instead a topic about the Steam recommendation system sending him in the direction of a game named Swords ‘N Magic and Stuff, which exudes a significant amount of charm. I checked it out during the show and it reminded more than a little bit of Cube World, which is a pretty crunchy voxel exploration game. What ultimately made me pick the game up, is knowing that Tam very much does not go in for the Minecraftian style graphical thing and if he was interested them probably it was worth noting.

First points scored for the game is that it has a really interesting character creation system. The characters themselves are extremely stylized but at the same time are capable of expressive characteristics. Right now you have Human, Dryad, Faun, Moon Elf and Sun Orc to choose from with their own color variations available. In practice what this really meant to me was general human, woodgrain character, has ram horns, can be purple and has tusks and horns. I ended up gravitating towards the Orc and made one with rusty red skin and dark green hair and beard. The game scores big props with me for being entirely genderless so you have access to all the same bits and can fiddle with them until you get something that makes you happy. I even got the over the eye scar thing that I seem to love so much and always choose when it is an option as well as a rather high quality braided beard.

The game starts you off on a ship heading to an island in order to seek your fortune. Ships make for an excellent starting point, given that you are in a relatively confined place which makes for easy to follow tutorials. You go through the paces of having the simple interactions of the game explained a bit, and are walked through an early example of a quest where you fetch something that another character can’t get to. Once you have looted anything that isn’t nailed down, you can proceed up on the deck of the ship where you have arrived at the island in question. The captain wants to talk to you about the matter of settling up for your journey, and introduces you to the first few quests which involve going and procuring some dizzy juice for him.

Questing seems to be very much of the “If you give a mouse a cookie variety”, as so far other than a quest to find some glasses they all appear to branch out significantly. In order to get the Dizzy Juice, the tavern keeper asks you to clear out a cave and in order to get into the cave the person standing guard asks you to fetch a mug from inside. Inside the cave there are three crabs and a mug that you can loot, which then allows you to retrace your steps back to the guy who loaned you his key, and back to the tavern keeper who wanted you to clear the cave out… and then back to the captain who gives you a second quest to reserve a room at the inn. As I spread out through the island, many of these quests involved doing sub quests to retrieve something else, which in itself often requires you to get something in order to do it. For example I am being asked to get a candle for a picnic, and in order to get that I need to get some honey combs for the candlemaker… which it seems requires me to have purchased a sling shot to knock them down.

The combat system is fairly straight forward, but one that it very much feels like the deck is stacked against you. Every thing I have encountered so far deals significantly more damage than I am capable of. Additionally there is no health regeneration, so you need to carry with you a fairly ample supply of healing potions which I am hoping at some point I will be able to learn how to craft. Using a weapon increases your skill in that weapon, which seems to increase your likelihood for critical strikes. There is a crafting system that I have not interacted with much, but it allows for you to upgrade your weapons if you gather the resources to do so. Right now I have largely focused on a sword and shield because these were the first weapons that I got access to.

While combat seems a bit uneven at times, one huge boon is the fact that death seems to largely be meaningless. When you die you go into a spirit world similar to that of World of Warcraft, but where it varies greatly is that a timer starts ticking down. When it completes you will be summoned back to life at the nearest shrine, which in the case of early exploration seems to be right near the docks in town. While you are in the spirit world with the timer ticking down you can free explore and scope out dangerous areas, which is pretty cool. The initial island itself seems fairly small, but I did notice there was a ferry that I am guessing will take you to other islands. In some ways the game reminds me of a more combat focused “The Touryst”, because it has a similarly interesting lighting engine.

At this point I have not really spent much time in the game, but I don’t want to dig in too deeply given that it is a pretty fresh early access title. I want to get together with Tam and try out the multiplayer, so we can see how exactly that works. This was the product of a fairly successful kickstarter, and looking at the various stretch goals it seems like there is going to be a lot of interesting things added in over time. That said there already is a lot here, given that there appears to be a fully fleshed out cosmetic system and from the looks of it maybe even a housing system. I find I really like the art style, and once I get a hang of the combat I think that will become a little more fair feeling. I think mostly it is just getting used to bringing up your shield at the exact moment of the attack rather than my usual of holding the shield in front of me… waiting for an attack and then striking.

Right now the game is roughly $20 on Steam, but like I said before is in early access so your mileage may vary depending on your proclivity for early access titles. Right now I plan on poking my head into the game off and on to continue to exploring it in small doses. I am intrigued by what is there enough to keep playing, but I do hope that a more functional map is in the works. Right now you can bring up a sketch of the island but you can’t seem to scroll in or anything. As is usually my case I will likely write again in the future about my adventures, especially if I can find a time when Tam and I can get in and kick the tires for the multiplayer functionality.

My Shaman and the Pre-Patch

by

I am not sure exactly what it is about World of Warcraft that causes me to constantly return to it. It could be the fact that I know the expansion is impending, or the fact that my friend Grace is back and leveling again, or it could just be that I find the rhythm of this game comforting in this time of uncertainty. Whatever the case I am largely focused on trying to get this elemental boy to 120 before the impending pre-patch. It is starting to look more and more like said patch is landing next Tuesday the 22nd, and with that disappears the Winds of Wisdom buff that I have been abusing to level all the things. I will truly miss you nonsense leveling speed because it was super fun to run up an army of alts horde side.

I still am not sure what bit flipped in my brain that suddenly allows for playing a caster to be enjoyable. I have long chided the “finger wigglers” of the world, claiming that it was not a thing that Bel’s do. However I am finding the pace and flow of leveling a caster to be terribly enjoyable of late. I don’t think it is enough that I will probably swap to one as a main, but it is still an interesting diversion. Right now I can legitimately say that I enjoy both the Elemental Shaman and various specs of the Warlock. I think Mage may still be a bit too squishy for my tastes, but the fact that I can heal myself up mid fight I think is what adds to the love of this Shaman.

With the pre-patch comes a slew of activities and a return of the scourge trying to invade Azeroth. Unfortunately gone are the really cool Judgement reskin armor sets from the Wrath of the Lich King event, and in its place are a bunch of reskins of the existing Warfront gear. The Alliance are getting brand new colors, and it appears that the horde are getting the same damned set we have had previously which sucks a little bit. Mostly for me I am looking at this as a way of gearing out characters prior to the patch since I have a feeling even with the squish this is ultimately going to be better gear than my alts are currently wearing.

WowHead has a guide to everything that has changed with the pre-patch and more importantly a guide to all of the Scourge Invasion events that I have been snipping images from. I have to admit the part that interests me the most is hanging around in Icecrown and farming the various World Bosses that are available. The base armor available for the event is item level 100 which is supposedly the “squished” version of 430 gear that comes from Normal mode Ny’alotha. I’ve heard that some items can be obtained at a 110 level, but I am not seeing this in the Wowhead Guide. The item that is probably going to be of the most interest is that Bronjahm is dropping an updated version of his bag that is 34 slots.

I am a sucker for pre-patches. I ground the hell out of the one that came with Legion and loved doing those Burning Crusade invasions. In that cause they also served as a really damned fast way to level a bunch of alts, and I remember doing this to catch up all of my Alliance characters at the time to level 100. It does not sound like the Undead Invasions are going to have this fringe benefit, but I do want to spend a little bit of time on my Alliance characters if for no reason other than to try and collect some of the unique armor appearances. As it stands my goals this week are to finish the shaman and prepare myself for a bunch of event nonsense starting next week. The launch of an expansion always brings out a sudden mania, but I will do my best to keep my cool.